Extracts from Murder in the Climate Assembly
The story is mostly the story of Iris Tate, Professor of Moral Philosophy who is writing a whodunnit based on a real-life murder case to illustrate key concepts to her students. The structure is unusual with transcripts of lectures and chapters from the whodunnit mixed in with the narrative. Some extracts (1 & 2) show how I integrate the philosophy into the story, Extract 3 features Rawls’ Theory of Justice and shows how the whodunnit is woven into the lecture. The novel also references: Plato, Aristotle and Socrates; Hobbes; Locke and other rights theorists; Wittgenstein; Utilitarianism (Bentham & Mill); virtue theory; egoism; ecofeminism (see diversity extract 2); moral relativism, and cross-cultural approaches such as Ubuntu (e.g. see diversity extract 1). See also Arts & Humanities box where I include an extract from a talk where Iris makes the case that moral philosophy is the most important subject in the world.
Extract 1: chapter 1
I’m Iris Tate, Professor of Moral Philosophy. I’ve published extensively in the academic field, but this kind of thing is new to me. I’ve been told I should start with a bit about myself. Typically, narrators writing in the first person find an excuse to examine themselves in a mirror and reveal what they see. Usually someone good-looking. If it’s a male author writing as female, she may regard her naked body for a bit too.
I present a cheerful exterior. In my previous post in the Business School, some of my colleagues called me Chip. I’m not sure if it was short for chipper or due to my toothy chipmunk smile. I’d love Chip to catch on here, but it doesn’t count if you suggest it yourself. All the philosophy in the world doesn’t protect you from the need to belong. I was looking for my tribe. A bit late in the day at fifty you might think, but a lot’s changed in the last year.
One should reveal character, maybe by saving a cat or something. I’ve done a few of those personality questionnaires – are you introvert, extrovert, etc. I’m always bang in the middle. I seek balance. Someone told me it’s because I’m a Libra, but I don’t believe in any of that nonsense. I believe in reason and ethics.
How do we judge ourselves, anyway? Many like to identify themselves with some kind of label. But as the philosopher Wittgenstein said, words, categories, identities – they’re artificially created boxes. They’re frames on meaning. We exist in a boundless universe of everything, and we put a frame around this or that piece of it and call it a table, justice, bisexual, etc. We then juggle these boxes around, hoping we can make sense of them. But they could never add up neatly. This is if I understand Wittgenstein correctly. If I don’t, I’m in good company. Even his mentor was accused of misunderstanding what Wittgenstein was trying to say. That’s the trouble with using language to explain the trouble with language. I’d welcome a phenomenologist’s view on this. ‘It is what it is,’ they’d probably say, and what would Wittgenstein make of that?
Suffice to say, I am first and foremost a professor of moral philosophy. You’ll know me through my work. Although, if you’re hoping this book will be full of philosophical ruminations you’ll be disappointed, because things start to happen. Things happen all the time of course, but the inciting incident, as they call it, occurred when I encountered the dilemma.
Extract 2 Kant
I rushed back to my office to write the next chapter. I was distracted from my creative musings by Kant’s face staring at me from the back cover of his collected works. I gave a slight nod in response to the question implicit in his arched eyebrows. Okay, yes, Sarah’s situation was analogous to my own. I was focusing on the high stakes for humanity to justify not informing the students their decisions would have real consequences.
I could have insisted on running what I’m doing past the ethics committee. The DPP might have agreed rather than lose the consultancy option altogether. I’d assumed the committee would have insisted upon informing the students. I didn’t know for sure.
Ridiculous to want absolution from a dead philosopher.
My intentions were good, though.
Kant’s eyes look into mine. His expression gives nothing away.
Extract 3 Rawls Theory of Justice
Extract from whodunnit
SARAH: The mission of this citizens’ jury is to answer the question, what policy proposal do we put to the government to implement to ensure that we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in a way that’s sufficient to address the climate crisis and is fair and just.
STEVE: It depends what you mean by just. If you mean everyone being equal, why should people who lounge around doing nothing have the same as someone who’s worked their guts out to get where they are?
SARAH: It’s down to you, a representative group of citizens, to answer that question.
Lecture 3 Rawls Theory of Justice
The mission of the citizens’ jury is, as Sarah claims, to decide what policy proposal the government must implement to ensure that we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in a way that’s sufficient to address the climate crisis and is just.
Steve, in response, queries what she means by justice and asks: should people who lounge around doing nothing have the same as someone who’s worked hard to get where they are?
In your groups, spend a few moments discussing what is ‘just’.
Transcription note. Recording paused while class debated and then fed back.
Many said justice was fairness, but that’s more of a synonym. So we need to have another way in that isn’t just a question of definitions. Indeed, Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations nearly put an end to philosophy by claiming that all philosophical debates were ultimately a question of terminology. Let’s prove him wrong and dig a little deeper
[section cut]
Rawls says that to avoid self-interest biasing your judgement on what’s fair, you should imagine yourself behind a ‘veil of ignorance’. If you were a policymaker, for example, what decisions would you make if you didn’t know what position you’d take in that society?
Class exercise: Imagine you are floating in the ether awaiting reincarnation and you don’t know if you’ll come back as a man or woman; gay or straight. You don’t know if you’ll be born in Africa or Australia, whether you’ll be healthy or disabled, neuro-diverse, good at maths or sports or nothing much at all. You don’t know what your desires and preferences are, or whether you will be born tomorrow or in twenty years’ time. To be accurate, Rawls didn’t actually mention reincarnation, LGBTQ+ or neurodiversity or future generations. He stuck to social status, ethnicity, gender and idea of the good life, but you have to move with the times. Under such conditions, what kind of society would you vote for?
[section cut]
Many of you agreed with Rawls that under conditions of uncertainty, you’d play it safe, and go for the minimum of inequality consistent with the need to provide incentives towards hard work and innovation.
There were some with a gambling bent who’d go all or nothing and would accept the one percent chance that they’d be very wealthy against the 23 percent chance that they’d live below the poverty line. But if we draw on the economic principles of marginal utility, it’s clear that welfare increases with equality. For example, giving a thousand pounds to someone who is broke has greater benefit that giving it to a millionaire.
From this thought experiment, Rawls proposes that under a ‘veil of ignorance’, rational people would abide by two basic moral principles: each person is entitled to the most extensive amount of liberty compatible with an equal amount for others. Second, differences in social power and economic benefits are justified only when they’re likely to benefit everyone, especially members of the most disadvantaged groups.
Next we need to return to our citizens’ jury and consider the proposals being put forward in terms of whether they meet these criteria of justice, and crucially, their likely effectiveness in averting the worst of the climate crisis.
